Miss Mom Takes a Sick Day

I had guests this week. I will call them Sir Hacksalot and Mr. Dizzy Pants. Sir Hacksalot visits about twice a year, muscling in on my lungs who, once upon a time, thought that asthma would make for a great decorating scheme. This time Sir Hacksalot brought a new friend Mr. Dizzy Pants who figured that my right ear would make a wonderful place to spend some time. I believe these two yahoos decided that vertigo would make coughing fits that much more fun so “timed the visit” simultaneously.

In the meantime the body that houses me has seen life slow down to a slow whine inducing crawl. My house maintained a post-nuclear state, because I was lacking the energy to pick up what a certain visiting toddler had left in her wake or do laundry, or even put away the vacuum that I thought I had the energy to use. I took a sick day and was very thankful I had had the forethought to make a crock pot of soup the day before. My two visitors made themselves right at home, laughed it up at my expense and asked for more of that red liquid stuff I’d been swallowing.

Now before you wonder what this woman is on, I’ll tell you: a Z-pack, some cough syrup with hydrocodone, and a sore place on my bottom where I got a cortizone shot along with all my other asthma meds. What you just read is the result of my brain deciding to head elsewhere and I was in bed with a notepad and a pen unable to sleep. I get this “lets make Sylvie feel really lousy” stuff at set times, like almost certainly right before Thanksgiving and often for Valentine’s day. Yes, my body knows how to celebrate the holidays.

Actually, it really hasn’t been all that bad. I’ve the only one sick and the only one in the house right who needed a little extra TLC, which I am managed just fine. Especially as a 10-pound cat that goes by the name of Chernobyll followed me everywhere and sat on me to make sure I stay put. History has proven that I’d be back to close to full hairdresser mode in a day or two as the antibiotics do their work, and that has mostly the case with me. The bronchitis usually flares up a few times before finally being kicked to the curb for good. I secretly believe that my lungs and Sir Hacksalot have become really good friends, which is why I think I tend to have bronchitis stick around much longer then I’d like. It’s either that or my lungs are just wimps that don’t have the courage to tell unwanted guests to leave already. Even so, I just have to remember to turn down the flames from the candle I’m burning both ends of until I am completely better. Something, I sadly confess, that I find easier to do only when I feel rotten.

I vividly remember, however, being ill and having little sick, helpless people needing my help, even if I was convinced that no one could possibly feel worse then I did. I was “the Mom,” so how I felt had to take a back seat until they either fell asleep or were all better again. My children had the uncanny ability to come down with symptoms of the current crud at exactly 4:55 p.m on a Friday afternoon. As we didn’t have weekend clinics where we used to live, we were stuck indoors all weekend, with a house full of poor pitiful souls, sporting runny noses and begging for more juice.

Back then, I didn’t get a day to hide away from the world in my warmest jammies and slippers with a blanket handy and a cup of peppermint tea brewing. I, like moms of school-aged children the world over, shuffled through the house, gathering up used tissues, taking temperatures, changing movies in the player, feeding the healthy members of the family and cursing the biology gods who made such beasties as strep throat and the stomach flu.

I, like those moms, would also wonder how nearly comatose kids with little or no appetite could manage to dirty up every spoon, cup, glass and bowl in your house in just 5 hours. These same children could also render, fit for the washing machine, all your sheets, blankets, pillows and their pajamas in less time then that. Meanwhile all you want to do is face plant into your pillow and not rise again until the kids are back in school, preferably at a college far, far away.

For you moms in that situation right now, you have my deepest sympathy. I do promise you that in a few days you’ll feel better, and so will they. In a few years, they’ll be on their own and when you get sick, no one will interrupt your nap, you can drink all the juice yourself, and your sick day will be spent solely on you. No, you won’t feel any less sick then you did when surrounded by feverish third graders, but you will be able just to focus on resting and getting healthy again without having to worry about someone else either needing to throw up or unable to sleep because their ears ache. What you will have is the exclusive luxury of getting to do all the begging and whining all by yourself, even if no one else is around to hear. Trust me on this, it is a rather nice luxury.